Shelly's First Match
by jasperthenoble
Summary: This peculiar Faunus is hiding something...


**[Author's note: This is just an OC one-shot. Just me coming up with characters and such.]**

"The next match will be between Cardin Winchester and Sheldon Pearl," Professor Goodwitch said calmly, her expression unchanging.

Everyone's heads whipped around and their gazes converged onto a single point: the new kid.

This kid was definitely a strange case. Out of all of the Faunus, he was perhaps the most unfortunate. Why? He was an oyster Faunus. An oyster. As if that alone wasn't enough, his appearance literally guaranteed his Faunus status: the right half of his face had a shell on it, covering everything on the right side of his face except for his eye. Almost every day he cursed his parents and their sick, twisted sense of humor for naming him Sheldon.

"Let's do this!" Cardin said, standing up and cracking his knuckles.

"Uh, Professor, I can't fight today," Sheldon said desperately.

"Mr. Pearl, you _will_ be fighting today."

"I gotta use the bathroom…"

The professor's eye twitched. "Mr. Pearl."

"I uh, I don't have my weapon?" the boy said, hiding his gun behind his back, hoping he could avoid the fight.

"That won't be an issue. You will simply fight your opponent unarmed."

"Oh jeez…" he muttered, giving up. It was inevitable, he was bound to fight someone eventually, he just didn't think it would be this soon.

"Come on, Shelly, you can do it!" The boy look to his left to see an enthusiastic Ruby Rose with a huge grin and two thumbs up. Seeing her face managed to cheer him up significantly, though it wasn't apparent to anyone.

Sighing, Sheldon stood up, wary of all of the eyes of his peers observing his every movement. He did his best to ignore the piercing glares as he approached the circle. He took his spot on one end while Cardin positioned himself on the other side, a smug look on his face. There were occasional whispers and murmurs amongst the watchful students.

Professor Goodwitch cleared her throat and began a brief explanation of the rules, which by this point, everyone had heard so many times that it was engraved into their memories like a tombstone message. "The rules are as follows. The match will end when one of the competitors either runs out of aura or is knocked out of the circle. There are to be no fatal attacks, and semblances are allowed. Any questions?"

Vincent raised his hand. "Professor?"

"Yes, Mr. Pearl?"

"I'd _really_ like to request a bathroom break."

"Request denied. Prepare yourself."

' _Wow, they weren't kidding when they said she was ruthless.'_ Vincent reluctantly entered a fighter's stance. Cardin put on a somewhat serious expression, failing to hide the fact that he was going to enjoy beating the pearls out of Sheldon. Literally.

"The match will begin in five…four…three…two…one…fight."

Immediately, Cardin charged toward his target, his mace in hand, ready to strike. The gap between the two combatants quickly became smaller, and as soon as Cardin was in range to attack Sheldon, he swiftly swung his mace around and swept it in a wide arc, forcing the poor opponent to duck, just barely dodging the attack. Sheldon quickly scrambled away and stood up, panting, and with a horrified look on his face.

"You just…hah…hah…tried to hit…hah…my face! What the flip?!"

Cardin ignored the Faunus and charged again, this time swinging his weapon upward. Sheldon managed to dodge this attack as well, falling backward onto his back. Cardin, whose mace was now above his head, grasped the weapon with both hands and thrust it straight down onto his opponent. Sheldon rolled out of the way just in time to hear a loud thud just inches from his ear.

"I don't like this," he managed to say before Cardin lifted his mace and repeated the previous attack. Sheldon shut his eyes and braced himself for the impact of the blow that was surely to come.

 **Thud.**

 _Crack._

* * *

Sheldon regained consciousness and quickly sat up, ready to fight off his attacker—

"Hey, you're awake!" Sheldon whipped his head to the right to see Ruby Rose, sitting by the bed. Wait, what?

Yes, he was in the infirmary.

"That injury looks really bad…" she pointed out.

Sheldon appeared confused. "What do you mean? What happened?"

"Well, uh… Cardin sorta kinda broke your face open…" she said, signaling to the right side of her face. Sheldon reached up to touch his own face. His eyes went wide when he touched it.

Skin. Not shell. _Skin._

"Gahhhhhhhh!" he cried out. Ruby winced at his shriek. Was he in pain? Did it hurt? No, it was something else. "Mom is going to _kill_ me!"

Ruby frowned. "Why would she do that?"

Sheldon sighed. "My mom told me before coming here, 'Your shell is what defines who you are, and no one can ever take that away from you. So if you ever lose it, I'll kill you.' I mean, she even said it with a smile, too. She's really scary sometimes."

Both Ruby and Sheldon shuddered at the image. Suddenly, Ruby piped up. "Oh yeah, I forgot this." She handed the boy a plastic bag, which made clinking sounds as it moved. "I brought you your face. Well, most of it, anyway. I don't know if I got all of the pieces…"

Sheldon took the bag from the girl with a smile. He opened it and looked at the contents inside and shrugged. "It's alright, Ruby. It's not like I'm going to glue them back to my face or anything."

"Wait, really?" Ruby seemed a bit surprised. Sheldon couldn't help but smile at the young girl's cluelessness.

"No, I'm going to grow another one. It'll probably take a week or so, but it'll be as good as new."

Ruby appeared to be deep in thought. "But… how would your mom know you lost your shell?"

"You see, the shell grows differently every time it breaks. My last shell had a specific pattern on it, and for it to grow with that pattern twice is almost impossible. Not to mention the shape and color can change too."

"Oh…"

The two students sat there in silence, no words coming to mind. That was until Ruby suddenly remembered something.

"Oh yeah, I just remembered something!"

Sheldon raised his left eyebrow. "What would that be?"

"Professor Ozpin wanted to meet with you when you woke up."

Sheldon groaned. "Ugh… not again…." This would make the fourth time he was called into the Headmaster's office this week. It wasn't because of his behavior, at least not the previous times he visited Ozpin. There were other reasons…

"I see. I should probably get going, then. Goodbye, Ruby. Thanks for being my friend." And with that, the boy jumped out of the bed with ease, almost as if he wasn't even injured at all. He gave her a final smile before vanishing out the door.

' _Heh heh, he called me a 'friend'…'_ Ruby thought to herself, satisfied by the outcome of her efforts. She had spent the entirety of the day being friendly toward him. At first, she started by flashing awkward smiles in his direction (unaware of how awkward they really were, though Sheldon didn't seem to mind) and waving, and after a while had introduced herself. She was trying so hard for one reason: she and Sheldon were in the same boat.

More specifically, they were both younger than the other students. Ruby was two years younger, and Sheldon was one. So naturally the two were bound to become friends in this school full of "elders", as Sheldon so lovingly described them to Ruby.

' _Though I'm a little curious where he's from…'_

* * *

Sheldon had been walking for five minutes with his shattered shell shuffling around in the bag he was carefully holding in his left hand. He eventually made his way to the base of the Beacon Spire and entered the elevator at the bottom, pressing the button that had the number 12. The elevator doors closed and he slowly ascended to the top floor. The doors opened with a _DING!_

With a quiet sigh, Sheldon stepped forward and walked into Professor Ozpin's office, closing the doors behind him. The Headmaster himself was standing in the back of the room, gazing out the window, coffee mug in hand. Before Sheldon could speak, Ozpin cleared his throat.

"Mr. Pearl. Welcome back to my office." The enigmatic Headmaster turned around. Sheldon noticed that Ozpin was not smiling, unlike the other times he was here. "You probably know what events lead to your coming here."

"Yeah…" mused the Faunus, scratching the back of his shoulder length ocean-blue hair. "The match with Cardin Winchester, I know."

"Indeed. I highly recommend you stop putting on such a ridiculous act."

"…"

"Yes, I'm aware of your capabilities, Mr. Pearl. Not to say that I'm unimpressed. Your acting skills are phenomenal, to say the least. I simply believe you'd have a better time if you didn't hold back."

"How'd you find out?"

"It's a funny story, actually," Ozpin chuckled. "Your mother called me yesterday. I was actually rather surprised to hear this from her."

Ozpin could visibly see Sheldon shudder in his seat at the mention of his mother. "I'm never truly free from her influence, huh…" the boy muttered under his breath.

"I knew there was a reason you applied for the academy six months ahead of your own class, but I never imagined it was because of something so incredible. I commend you for your achievements." Ozpin finally smiled. This helped put Sheldon's nerves at ease.

"Yeah, I guess…"

"Please, Mr. Pearl, I hope you take my advice into consideration. I highly recommend that you stop holding back so much. I mean, look at what's happened to your shell."

Sheldon's eyes grew wide. "You didn't tell my mom about this, did you?"

Ozpin took a sip from his coffee. "No, I felt that doing so would only make matters worse for you. I want you to succeed, believe it or not."

The Faunus boy nodded his head.

"Very well, it seems we have run out of topics to discuss. You are free to leave."

Sheldon quickly stood up. "Thank you, Professor Ozpin. I'll be leaving now." As he turned to exit the room, Ozpin spoke once again.

"One more thing, Mr. Pearl." The boy stopped. "I look forward to watching your next match." This elicited a smile from the boy.

"I can't wait for it."

Sheldon exited the room, leaving behind a man who was contemplating his next action. _'Maybe I'll call up a mischievous student. I'm feeling a little bored.'_

* * *

"I have to say, Jaune. That new guy is probably worse than you were when you first came to Beacon."

"Nora is right," Pyrrha agreed. "He was knocked unconscious with a single blow to the face, not to mention he never drew his weapon."

"He wasn't using any aura," Ren pointed out. "Not even when defending against Cardin. I guess that's why he went down so easily."

"Oh…" Nora, Jaune, and Pyrrha said at the same time.

"However," Pyrrha added, "his stance before the fight was actually that of a skilled fighter, I could tell. His balance, his form, everything was virtually flawless."

"Until then the match started," Jaune finished. "That's definitely strange, I gotta admit." He yawned and stretched his arms wide, still wearing his warm and cozy pajama onesie. "I don't know about you guys, but I'm going to sleep." He reclined in his bed. "Goodnight you guys."

Pyrrha couldn't help but smile at her team leader and partner.


End file.
